Stereopathique
by The Exile
Summary: The events of Phantasy Star 4 are over, and Rune is free to pursue his training as Lutz. But something is going wrong with the process, and Rune fears that he is on the brink of losing his mind entirely.
1. Chapter 1

"Nothing of what I tell you must go past this chamber, do you understand?"

The Elder nodded. He lifted an eyebrow; he was surprised at Rune's sudden seriousness. Normally he would have insulted the old Esper five times by now.

"I swear by Alis." he said.

They stood in the Elsydeon Chamber. Of all rooms in the Esper Mansion, this was the safest. Nobody but the Elder, Rune and his Protectors even knew of its existence. Nobody went down here any more. They had no reason to. The Elsydeon was gone, shattered in the final battle against the Profound Darkness.

Not that anyone would have broken a vow of secrecy made with the Fifth Incarnation of Lutz himself. What was Rune so afraid of? The Elder had never seen him even care about making promises or keeping secrets before in his life. And the way he was pacing, not lounging on the dais where the Elsydeon had been, the look in his eyes as though he hadn't slept for a week. He wasn't sure how to deal with Rune when he needed help so badly that he actually admitted he needed help.

"Its about the Telepathy Ball." said Rune, "About Lutz."

"Ah, you mean when you inherited Lutz's will and memories?"

"I think something went wrong with the procedure." said Rune, "I think I need to fix it right away. I need as much information as possible, and you're the only person I know has any information whatsoever."

"I think I have a few manuals locked away in my personal library." said the elder, "I shall go and look for them right away."

Rune nodded. He waited for the old man to leave, then sat down on the dais, looking up at the ceiling of the dim cavern, watching water drip down into a puddle in front of him. Waiting... He had never liked waiting. Now it was worse. He couldn't afford to get bored. He couldn't let his mind wander. He had to stay in full control. He had to...

_This place reminded him oddly of her..._

_How did he get here anyway? The last thing he remembered, he was in the Corona Tower... no, it was the Gumbious Temple now, the old tower long fallen into ruin and a Temple built over its foundations... talking to the Bishop. He had been a nervous-looking young initiate when he first knew the man, but at least he was someone to talk to, someone who remembered. Now he was here... he didn't like surprises. It was always a shock when he woke up to find his body the same and everything around him changed. Except now this definitely wasn't his body. It was pleasantly stronger – his own had grown so frail lying in stasis for so long – but it didn't quite have the raw potential for channelling telekinetic energy. You always had to sacrifice physical health for mental potential. That was the first thing he had found out as a student. There was no such thing as a free lunch. And it was... unreliable. He would lose a few hour's memory and then he would be somewhere else._

_Maybe the whole process was just malfunctioning... maybe HE was malfunctioning... he had always known this would happen, but what was the alternative? _

_Strong mental energy signatures. Espers? Maybe he was near his home. He would have a word with the technicians._

_The word 'Ryuka' was framed upon his lips..._

NO! Not now! Rune let out a psychic scream, mentally wrenching control of his ego back from the intruder, driving him back into the murky recesses of the subconscious.

"Do you require healing, Reverent Fifth One?" the Elder gave him a funny look. He had returned with a pile of books in his arms to find Rune gripping his head in his hands, his teeth clenched, whispering to himself in a harsh voice.

"I... I'll live..." he muttered. He looked up at the books placed in his lap. One was a technical manual for the Telepathy Ball. Two more were advanced textbooks about telepathy, another was a more specialist book about medical conditions common in high level telepaths, another about psychological conditions, another three were history textbooks with large sections about the previous four Lutz generations.

"Elder?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"What is the... exact relationship between me and Lutz?"

"What do you mean?"

"Am I still Rune, or am I Lutz? What exactly happens to Rune, and what exactly happens to Lutz?"

"Well, as I understand it, 'Lutz' is only a formal title now that the original Lutz has passed away. As far as your identity goes, you are still Rune Walsh, but you are also the Fifth Lutz, so of course you should be referred to at all times as Lutz!"

"What exactly is left of Lutz in the telepathy ball?"

"Only what is necessary for the completion of your duties as Lutz. The most important memories – such as the memories of Dark Force and the other foes Lutz fought in the past – some of the battle instincts, some of the advanced spells and techniques Lutz thought you might need to use..."

"Nothing like an actual full personality?"

"No, no, there isn't enough space on the telepathy ball to store something as complicated as an entire personality!" said the Elder, "Even if a telepathy ball could be made with enough space, and something could be found to power it, there would be no way to access it – memories are a lot easier to integrate into an existing personality than a whole new personality installed from scratch. Besides, it might destroy your old personality, and then nobody would ever volunteer for the transfer!"

Rune did not remember being asked for his consent. He was just told it was his destiny. Come to think of it, he didn't remember much about how he had first learnt it was his destiny, who had told him, how they had found him. How old had he been? How old was he now? He couldn't remember the place he had been born... damn you, you bastard, are you stealing my memories too, now?

"It was attempted, of course. A few prototypes were made. It must have been sad for them, to realise that they couldn't keep Lutz alive, after so many thousands of years..." mused the Elder, picking up a book that Rune had accidentally dropped in the puddle and wiping it with the air of someone very irritated at their priceless antiquarian books being dropped in puddles, "And you say this one is malfunctioning? Oh, dear... I hope Lutz had the forethought to remember to leave behind his memories of how to fix the telepathy ball... that's the kind of thing you never..."

_Of course I don't know how to fix a telepathy ball, thought Lutz, I'm not a technician! That's why I have technicians! But- he peered at the manual – it was kept in terrible condition – being held before him by the man who looked like his friend Loid, but wasn't him – he supposed it wasn't that difficult to learn. Anyway, he didn't want to sit here and discuss broken telepathy balls with this man. The telepathy balls NEVER worked!_

"_Ryuka." he said firmly._


	2. Chapter 2

Lutz smoothed the last lock of his fine cyan hair with a comb of laconia, the handle carved into twin dragons. He wondered with a mix of bemusement and irritation what had possessed him to tie his hair back with a leather cord. It made him look immature and undignified, like an ill-tutored apprentice, not to mention putting strain on his hair where it was tied too tightly. His hair had darkened – probably due to the same overexposure to the sun that had tanned his delicate skin. He was a scholar and a magician, not a wanderer!

His physical appearance was the least of his worries. A few simple illusions placed over himself would hardly take any of his power to cast at all. That was becoming another problem, though... power. He was still at a fraction of the level he should be. It had never taken him this long to regain his power after a long sleep before. Something was blocking him.

Algol had changed so much. Whole continents of Dezolis had shifted. It had taken him all day just to find the Menobe Tower. He had learned from asking the residents of nearby towns that the entire region had been enclosed in ice when the weather had gone out of control – the work of Dark Force, as he might have guessed. By the time the unnatural blizzards had receded, too much damage had been done to the area, one of the worst affected areas on the whole planet. An entire mountain had collapsed, separating it permanently from the inhabited areas of Dezolis. That was the problem with Algol. It changed very rapidly over small time periods. It was a troubled world, always in turmoil. Lutz had always said that he needed to be woken up more regularly. However, the cryotechnicians insisted that the shock to his system caused by more frequent awakenings would make it impossible to keep him alive indefinitely.

He was relieved to find that the Menobe hadn't changed. The enchantments woven around it by entire quorums of elite wizards over millennia of use had kept it as pristine as the day it was first officially opened. Even the pot plants, delicate conifers in shades of blue-grey that looked almost fossilised inside earthenware pots depicting Alis battling several different exotic beasts, now near-mythical, such as the Medusa, were still thriving. He began to feel his old self as his white robes swept across the stone floor. He walked past arches that extended as high as he could see, beautifully cropped menageries and fountains,spiral staircases and balconies that overlooked what remained of the mountains, with views of the Gumbious Temple, its fires a brilliant beacon in the murk of the cloudy dusk.

He stopped on the second to highest floor, where the library should still be. He had gone here mostly for the content of the Menobe Library. Partly because he still couldn't find his cryochamber and suspected that some idiot had physically moved the Esper Mansion so that his basement was no longer under it but mostly because the Menobe Tower was where the research took place, both scientific and magical, back when all five buildings were still in use. The Ikuto was a martial training centre and weapons storage bay, the Guaron was a place of religious ritual and the more spiritual defenses against Dark Force and the Naval was a Government centre and court of law. If any knowledge remained that would give him a clue as to what happened to him, it would be in the Menobe.

"Riy rever ma hahm Malay." he muttered, placing his palm against the rune carved on the door. In response to his correct incantation, it shone pale blue and the door swung open without making a sound. He stepped inside. The magical ward had done its job. Even Dark Force's monsters and the descendants of Alis, who had come to borrow the sacred weapons (and never gave them back, Lutz noted with some irritation) with which to fight Dark Force, had not been able to enter this door. Most likely, they had not even seen it. The books were all perfectly in place on the shelves, in the order and condition they had always been in. He scanned the rows and saw books on magical theory, technique, healing and life extension, combining magic and technology, the astronomical cycles of Algol and the phases of Dark Force's return.

He stopped to browse the technology section, then walked over to a Laerma-wood desk with a white sheet draped over it. Someone had left out their research tools. On the desk, surrounded by slim telekinetically reactive blades and fine measures of psychic energy, were a number of the glass spheres that hosted Telepathy Balls. They were in different stages of construction, most of them not yet usable, some faulty, some of them still in two halves that weren't joined together yet. Espers were normally tidy people and certainly wouldn't leave their equipment out before going into thousands of years of solitude in preparation for an attack by Dark Force. Telepathy balls were something they took even more care of, in case someone stored confidential information on one and didn't ward it correctly. He picked one up at random...

Rune cried out and dropped the object in his hand.

He heard it smash into several pieces, then heard a much louder noise. It sounded like the infernal roaring of hell's furnaces and was growing louder.

He dove out of the way just in time as a gout of flame flew through the air towards him, large enough to immolate him instantly. His battle instincts took over and his staff was out in his hands, both his physical and magical barriers were up. The flames coalesced and rose up into a living, billowing pillar of fire. It didn't seem to be setting anything else on fire – despite the fact that he appeared to be in a large library – but he could feel the intense heat overwhelming him. The thing was after him.

"NAWAT!" he yelled. A column of supercooled air shot out of his outstretched arm, which was glowing deep blue, and hit the thing just as it threw a cluster of fireballs at him. Gouts of steam poured from it, making an angry hissing sound. While the blow didn't stop its advance, the fireballs were vapourised, giving Rune a chance to scramble out of the way as the creature threw itself at him.

"NAWAT!" he cried again, putting slightly more force into the technique. The ray of cold punched through the fire, knocking it back. Mental exhaustion seeped into him but he pressed the attack, using the technique again and again. He wasn't sure he could defeat the creature on his own. He had never seen such a being. He didn't even know how to tell if he was damaging it. It wasn't really slowing down and it was too large to just destroy by extinguishing it. He looked for a way around it. It was trying to block the entrance but he wasn't sure if there were more entrances to the room he had woken up in. That was when he spotted one of the glass balls as it was about to roll off the table. Unwilling to be responsible for even more destruction of property in a place he had never been to before, he jumped back to catch it.

As his hands closed around it, the room went dark. A roaring filled his head, then white noise began to seep from the floor. He looked down, then saw his own hands and realised that he, too, was evaporating into white noise.

Someone was walking towards him...

_Lutz?_

He heard the voice in his mind. It was a soft, female voice. The figure was that of a young woman with short hair and wide eyes that stared at something far away.

_Who are you?_ He asked, hoping that it was working. He had some experience of talking to voices in his head but wasn't really that well practised.

_Do you really not remember me, Lutz? It hasn't been that long. Its me, your sister._

Lutz's eyes snapped open. He registered the column of fire bearing down on top of him, then was on the other side of the room with a short-range Ryuka.

"WHY are you attacking me?" he demanded, "NAWAT!"

A blue column fell from the ceiling, completely enveloping the living fire. When it subsided, the thing was a statue of ice. Lutz studied it for a moment before he shattered it with a Nazan technique. It didn't look as if its enchantment had been tampered with. The security systems can't stay in place for this long without malfunctioning slightly, but even so, they shouldn't be attacking Lutz!

He bent down to try and clean up the broke glass – it was clumsy of him to go around breaking things in a fight - then blacked out from psychic fatigue.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm sorry, Reverent Fifth One, but these are all unreadable."

The Elder peered through his craftsman's lenses at the delicate spheres arranged on a table in the Inner Sanctum. They were hollow and filled with fey lights. A working Telepathy Ball had a soft red glow but these ones, their data inaccessible, had turned blue. The fact that this was the opposite of any other colour coordination system Rune had ever heard of only irritated him more. Those were the more intact specimens – the majority of the spheres had been physically broken, many of them even pounded into dust. From the way they were spread around his unconscious form when he woke up covered in glass with a blinding headache, barely able to use a Ryuka technique to get out of wherever the hell he was, he had been responsible. The senior Esper was positive it should be impossible to break a Telepathy Ball. You certainly couldn't just knock one off the edge of the table and shatter it by accident – Rune was always dropping them and they just rolled away. They absorbed any amount of magic you threw at them. The technology to manipulate one was lost, so there was no way he could have known how to deliberately corrupt the data inside.

The only possible explanation was that Lutz – or rather, Rune with the memories of Lutz - was responsible. Of course he would have been alive when the knowledge necessary to manipulate the Telepathy Balls was still there – he himself had been stored in one – and such a powerful wizard would also have enough force behind his spells to break one.

"Why would Lutz want to break them?" asked Rune, "He doesn't strike me from the legends as a vandal."

"If we had access to the information on these things, I suppose we would have more chance of knowing the answer to that question." offered the Elder.

"You think he did this to hide whatever's on there?"

"Its always a possibility," said the Elder, "Do you not remember anything at all personally?"

Rune shook his head. The whole thing was starting to make him feel uneasy, just by describing it so frankly. It was the first time he had to admit that Lutz's full personality, not just his memories, was inside his head, and that Lutz was acting without his permission or his knowledge.

"Its a shame," the Elder shook his head, "Such possibilities... who knows what ancient, forgotten knowledge was contained within these spheres? We've only ever managed to locate one Telepathy Ball. We haven't even seen concrete proof that more of them were created before now!"

"Don't get all het up about it,"said Rune, "There might be more out there. Those were the only ones I saw in that room but there might be other... weird libraries... in the middle of nowhere..."

"I agree with you, though." said the Elder, "I don't think he would just have destroyed it maliciously. Its more likely that he tried to use it but couldn't. If it was already faulty, his attempt to use it may have broken it. He may even have destroyed it to prevent someone using a faulty Telepathy Ball on themselves and damaging their sanity."

Rune shuddered. He didn't want to go insane. He was an Esper – a person who relied upon their mental power. If his mind – the only tool he had – became faulty, he would have nothing left. He picked up one of the unresponsive Telepathy Balls, still humming with power impossible to harness, like a locked door that no longer had a key.

"It would be useful if you could allow me to speak with Lutz." the Elder said.

"I can't switch it on and off like a light!"

"However, you revert to Lutz frequently when you lose concentration. Lutz appears to want to manifest."

"He doesn't want to sit and talk, though, from what I've gathered." said Rune, "Every time I change over, I've been teleported some other weird place. I'm sorry. It just doesn't work out for me."

"Then we should map the 'weird places'. If you can remember where Lutz commonly goes, we can try to find a pattern, maybe even predict where he will go next."

Rune racked his brain to try and picture where he had been when he had woken up. The most recent place was a library, definitely in Dezolis as it hadn't been difficult to teleport back. The Elder identified it as one of the Towers of Nei. Some of the places could have been on the moon for all he knew. When he described them, sometimes the old man was able to recognise them. They were generally either Esper temples or known sites of previous Esper temples; ruins, caves or even perfectly intact buildings thought lost over the ages. The sites spread out over Dezolis and Motavia and even the Air Castle. Because of the huge spread, there was no real way to predict a triangulation point except to say that it would probably also be an Esper temple. As many of them weren't even known any more, there was no way to narrow it down.

There was nothing less satisfying than working to no avail. His brain felt like mush. Putting down the ancient atlas that the Elder had dug up from the archives, he lay down on the bench and fell asleep.

* * *

Lutz was intrigued to find a map of everywhere he had been in the middle of the Esper Mansion. He didn't remember drawing such a thing. It seemed an unnecessary and incredibly primitive way to go about the task. At least he could have made a proper map using an Illusion spell, rather than resorting to pen and paper! He corrected this immediately, first creating the grid in mid-air and then copying each point in turn onto it, adding extra dimensions to the illusion so that he could accurately place the planets in their orbits.

Making the map reminded him of how random his search had been. If he was going to find anything out, he needed a better strategy. At first he had been too confused, waking up after so long to find the world different once again and faults in the machinery his consciousness was stored in. He acted automatically to visit every good library and research laboratory he knew. Most of them were no longer in use or didn't even exist; the ones he could glean any information from no longer had records dating that far back.

He had now tried all the Towers of Nei, as well as both the original and current site of the Esper Mansion, the Soldier's Temple, the basement of the Corona Tower (the Dezolisians had built a massive Cathedral on top of it, which was helpful when he wanted to read through their ancient records but not so useful when a small army of warrior monks chased him out again) and the Air Castle (just because Lashiec was the enemy didn't mean he couldn't keep reliable information). The next most probable location was the Ladea Tower on Motavia. While it wasn't a major academic facility, it was used a lot for ceremonial purposes and sometimes to store important artefacts overnight. The Espers also had an agreement with the local Motavian tribe to guard it. Unless something had gone very wrong, they were probably still honouring the agreement. Change wasn't something that happened often to Motavian society.

He looked around for something to store the illusory map in but found nothing, so he dismissed it. Had they lost that technique too? In his current state, he wasn't quite sure whether he trusted himself to memorise it but there was no other choice. Maybe that was why he had written it down on paper in the first place.

"Ryuka." he whispered. A soft melody played in his head, he was enveloped by a warm light and suddenly he stood outside the gates of Termi. A wave of exhaustion washed over him. Interstellar teleportation was difficult at the best of times and his power was still fluctuating. He sat on a rock and smoothed his hair, removing the irritating cord once again. After he had regained some of his strength, he set off into the desert.

"Guardians!" he called in Motavian.

"Oh, hello, Rune." said the Motavian at the door, an old man he didn't recognise.

"Lutz." he corrected.

"Ah, yes, you've inherited his memories fully, haven't you?" he smiled, "Good for you. Always good to hear it when a student does well for themselves. Have you seen Chaz around? I met Gryz the other day but he was busy helping his sister out as usual."

Lutz shook his head. It was obviously another person who mistook him for someone he wasn't, maybe someone who he had interacted with during one of his memory black-outs. This was one of the reasons he didn't like to talk to people if at all possible. The other reason was that customs and manners of speech tended to change over thousands of years, even in Motavian society, and he didn't want to embarrass himself in conversation.

"I'm looking for information about cryostasis. Or Telepathy Balls. Or any actual cryostasis pods or Telepathy Balls." he said. The best way was usually the most direct way, to avoid becoming bogged down in unnecessary talk, "Is there anything like that stored in the Ladea Tower at the moment?"

"I'm afraid not. The only things up there are the Frademantle and the Psycho-Wand. Do you want to borrow them again?"

He shook his head. "Are you sure there is nothing else? No documents?"

"Nothing else up there. Sorry." he said, "Er... we've been storing crates of Trimate up there. Is that okay? There was lots of space left over and we didn't want it to go to waste."

He sighed and teleported up to the top of the tower. He was met by no resistance. The teleport barriers erected there had either worn off from disuse, deactivated to save power or been damaged in an incident. There really was nothing there except for the robe and weapon. He vaguely remembered returning them once he was sure that the battle with the Profound Darkness was over.

On his way back, he decided to stop at Termi to visit the statue of Alis. The gate guard waved him through, recommended a good inn and warned him that it was almost Sandworm season and he shouldn't be sitting around on rocks in the middle of the desert. This led him to ponder whether he could still defeat a Sandworm in battle in his present condition. He ignored the directions to the inn, walked straight up the steps to the top of the hill and sat on a bench in front of the statue. As much as a lifeless chunk of marble could really capture the essence of a person, and a Protector and Queen at that, it was a good likeness. Her warm smile, full of both strength and kindness; Lutz could still remember it when he closed his eyes. Myau stood at her feet in a regal pose. Seeing his long, silky fur and almost squirrel-like tail made Lutz smile. He was glad they had enough grasp of history to remember that Alis had a cat. He remembered the cat's insistent telepathic voice in his head, complaining constantly that his lap was too bony to curl up on and accusing him of performing experiments on him while he was asleep. Lutz would tell him not to fall asleep in his study if he was so worried, especially not on top of the books he was trying to work from. If it had been the real Myau, he would probably have tried to eat one of the butterflies that flitted around the statue, then blamed Lutz for forgetting to feed him.

A memory flashed through Lutz's head unbidden. A cave, deep in the Dezolis snowdrifts, hidden by a veil of mist, unusually warm. Of course. If the Musk Cats still had the Silver Tusk and knew what it was, they might have other information dating back that far. Musk Cats had a small amount of collective memory and a long lifespan. He said a silent prayer to the statue. While Alis had been human despite her virtues, the statue had an aura around it like a Mother Goddess. He wondered if the sudden recollection of his fight with the Profound Darkness was confused or gone altogether, was a kind of vision.

He set off back to Dezolis.


	4. Chapter 4

Myst Vale was the warmest place on Dezolis. He hadn't been able to figure out if this was because it was built over an underground magma lake or if the Musk Cats were even more powerful psychics than he imagined and were keeping it warm using the same methods Espers used for personal protection. Very little research had been done on Musk Cat culture because they had a habit of scratching your eyes out if they suspected you were experimenting on them. The warmth was a mercy for Lutz, whose power was exhausted again from the teleportation, the sudden threat of the cold of Dezolis and the strain on his mind. The memories of this place, some of them unclear, some not even ones that could logically be his own, were interfering with his control over himself.

As his conjured light pierced the darkness, he also disturbed a roost of Dezolis Owls. He hadn't even realised the dangerous predators were there. Birds of prey almost as large as himself, their powerful talons and beak could even tear through his magic barrier if he wasn't careful. He jumped back, reinforcing his barrier, then threw a Nazan technique at them, trying to knock them off balance with the ethereal gale storm. He used the distraction to run to the mouth of the small passageway leading off from the cavern. It would be harder for the owls to surround him there.

Something ran out of the passageway, darting beneath his feet and tripping him up. The small shape then yowled and jumped into the air, a spiky yellow blur. It landed on the head of the first owl and proceeded to try and claw its face off. The bird screeched and desperately tried to shake its attacker off. More shapes were emerging from the passage now. Pouncing and slashing furiously with their claws, they soon forced the owls to retreat.

_Hunt your own birds, meow, these are ours._

Lutz blinked. Five pairs of green eyes were staring up at him. One of them tapped him on the leg with his paw, then turned to the others and made a chirruping noise.

_Oh, its one of the Old Man's friends, meow. I'm sorry we were rude, meow, we didn't recognise you. All humans look the same to us. What can we do for you, meow?_

_I'm afraid its rather complicated, _Lutz communicated.

The cats led him through the winding passages into their dwelling chambers, deep inside enough to be defensible against the owls and other predators. All the way through the dimly lit corridors, small yellow cats played, slept or stared at each other in that conspiratorial way cats did. They seemed unconcerned at his presence. Only a few of them even bothered looking at him.

Their main chamber was full of psychic chatter. The senior cats had formed a council and were arguing about some matter of the running of the Vale. They sat in order of height level in to determine their hierarchy, except that they were still constantly arguing over their relative positions. In the centre of the chamber, on a raised pillar, a huge, ancient cat lay on a velvet cushion. He was one of only two Musk Cats in the Vale to have grown their wings, as Myau had done. Ignoring the irritated looks of the councillors, the cats of the hunting party stepped forwards and stared directly up at the cat on the dais.

_Old Man, _they said, _Wake up, meow, we have a guest from the outside world for you._

The old cat opened one eye, then stretched and yawned.

_How curious, _he said, _A human with two minds. Which one of you am I supposed to talk to, meow?_

–

_Why would you say you're going insane, meow? Both your personalities look perfectly sane to me._

_And I say we can't go ahead until we've done all the relevant paperwork, meow!_

_You're only saying that because you're the only one of us who can get the top off the ink bottle!_

_QUIET! _The force of the Old Man's will threw two of the feline bureaucrats off their perches and shocked the entire room into silence, _As I was saying, meow, I don't see what the problem is. _

_What the problem is? I'm not even in my own body, meow... _the Old Man gave him a funny look. When he realised what he had done wrong, Lutz blushed, _I don't have half my own memories and there's someone else fighting me for control of my own mind. Someone with inferior mental strength._

_That's no way to talk about your primary personality, meow._

_I don't think you understand. I don't know how it is for cats but this isn't natural for an Esper. I don't understand what's happening to me and I can't control it. _Lutz felt himself grow angry. He hated himself for being weak, uninformed and vulnerable. It would be extremely rude to lose his temper with the leader of the Musk Cats, who might even genuinely be more powerful thanhim for all he understood about cats.

_Have you tried talking to the other mind about it, meow?_

_What? We can't talk! If he's in control, I'm not there! Besides, he's utterly clueless!_

_I know that man, meow, he's not that bad really. A little insensitive. He must be at least a little competent if he's selected as the host for Lutz. That's if you really are Lutz, meow,_ added the cat, _The Wider Memories say you're Lutz but that's in the distant past, so I can't see it very clearly any more._

_Do your 'Wider Memories' say what exactly has happened to me?_

_Hm? I suppose they could do, meow, if a Musk Cat was there at the time. Was a Musk Cat there at the time?_

_I have no idea. I don't remember a thing._

_If you don't remember anything about what happened its hard for me to know exactly what to search for but I'll give it a go, meow._

The Old Man's eyes closed. Although it appeared as if he had fallen asleep again, Lutz's trained eyes saw his aura flare up from a soft yellow glow to a golden blaze. He was channelling a massive amount of energy. Lutz closed his eyes as well. Soon, his mind was filled with images of the world as seen through the eyes of various cats. There were some of Myau's memories in there. Lutz dismissed these as too far back in time. The memories fast-forwarded to the time when the cats were stuck on the Skure Space Station. Eventually the cats migrated to Dezolis and retreated into the caverns to escape from the cold. A few of them ended up in the Esper Mansion by following passages that were too small for Espers to fit through, hence ones they didn't expect to have to guard.

Then an unexpected turning led one of them into Lutz's cryochamber.


	5. Chapter 5

The chamber was silent and impeccably clean. The cryo-technician, in his flowing white robes and his psychically augmented viewing lenses, stared down at Lutz's frozen form, his expression serene, as though he was sleeping. The Esper was slightly unnerved at seeing his own body as a passive observer. He had done so before during astral projections but it wasn't something he needed to do often, so he wasn't used to it. It was quite a close-up view as the cat who remembered it had decided to press his face up against the glass.

_His life signals are weaker every time. He can only survive one more term, if that._

_How far are you along with the project, meow?_

_We now have one successful stereopathic transfer. However, the subject already showed some signs of a fractured psyche. We can't yet induce stereopathy in a subject with no psychological tendencies towards multiple personalities._

_Keep working on it, meow, it can't be that difficult for you humans to master._

_We have a bigger problem, though. The Telepathy Balls aren't working at all. We still don't have them working properly under normal circumstances, when we're only transferring memories. An entire personality is too much data for them to handle. We tried putting the data into multiple telepathy balls and programming them to reintegrate on the other side but the second part keeps malfunctioning._

_I can't help you with the technology side, meow, all your devices require opposable thumbs._

The technician stared at Lutz again.

_Just hold out for a while longer, _he said.

_But the next Era is so very close..._

The unexpected third voice made the Musk Cat twitch and turn around. He was face to face with a tall, black-robed, bored-looking young woman with short brown hair. Upon seeing her, the technician called out to her in Esper but the cat evidently didn't remember what he was saying or didn't understand Esper. Instead, the cat ran up to the girl and stared up at her, purring. She reached a hand out...

* * *

Another memory, still of the girl, except that now she was on the other side of a wall-sized screen. The reception was terrible and her image was breaking up. Behind her, Lutz could see a chamber in a cave of softly glowing pink and green crystal. More display screens and other mechanical equipment were installed into the bare rock. She looked alarmed. She was yelling down the microphone but the interference was too bad for the technician at the other end to hear what she was saying. He tried calling telepathically instead.

_You need to return! Lutz's and your Telepathy Ball malfunctioned last night. We don't know what damage has been done..._

_I'm fine. Nothing's gone wrong on my end. This is much more important._

_Then why can't we get a signal?_

_There have been a few local glitches in the data field. That's all._

_We don't have a back-up copy of you if anything happens! We can't lose either of our finest minds!_

_You don't understand. We managed to send a signal to and from the planetary matrix. If this turns out to be possible on a large scale, we won't need the Telepathy Balls. This is incredible, Loyd... an entire planet designed to record information... its like the God of Learning is real..._

_Its not going to happen in time to save Lutz! Can't you even come down to take a look at the Telepathy Ball yourself, see if you have any ideas about fixing it?_

_Well, I'll try, but to be honest... the glitches are affecting the ship's navigation systems. Even the Aero-Prism keeps sending us off course! It might be an idea to wait until they die down. Or I could try and haul this equipment out of range of the disruption. Or I could teleport..._

_No out-of-range teleportation! I need you alive on the other end!_

_I don't know what you're talking about. I could totally teleport from Rykros to Dezolis._

_Please don't, meow..._

_Oh, well, if its a kitty who's ask..._

Suddenly, the screen broke entirely up into interference. The technician swore at it, both psychically and out loud, thumped it, threatened to cast Gaj on it and then, with a resigned shrug, turned it off. The cat watched the image compress into a white dot, then his memory finished...

And Lutz was on the floor.

* * *

_Why am I here? Why was I unconscious?_ demanded Rune, lifting the cats off him. Myst Vale's medics had immediately rushed to revive him. They weren't too up-to-date with human medical biology but they had decided that casting Res while poking him in the face with their paws and purring loudly might work.

_I think your friend found out something he wasn't prepared for, meow, _volunteered the Old Man.

_Oh Feeve-biscuits, him again._ Rune swore.

_You need to keep him under tighter control, meow, he's a powerful wizard and he could cause a lot of damage if he became unstable._

_I can't control him!_

_If he's in control, you're not there, meow?_ The Old Man flicked his tail in a gesture of amusement.

_What were those weird memories? Were they his? _he demanded, _I thought I saw him there... and all the stuff about the Telepathy Ball... and that girl..._

_I relayed it to both of you, meow, in case one of you refused to relay it to the other._

_You haven't answered my question, _said Rune, _What am I doing here? You said you were talking to him, and you act like you know about my situation. What did he come to you for?_

_He wanted the same thing as you, meow. He wanted to know what was going on. We told him, to the best of our ability, meow. Those memories were the only things we had left to tell him._

_And what exactly made him faint?_

_I don't know, meow. He must have not liked something. Why don't you ask him yourself?_

_I already told you, I can't..._

It felt as though he was trying to arm-wrestle Wren. A mind ten times as strong as his own lunged at him from nowhere and tried to wrench control from him. He would have just let him take over and save himself some pain, until he felt the waves of chaotic desire and destructive urges emanating from Lutz's psyche. Then he saw the other wizard focus to begin casting.

"RYUKA!" screamed Rune.

"LEGEON!" screamed Lutz, half a second later.


	6. Chapter 6

Like a blue lightning storm, bolts of raw psychic energy surged from Rune's arms and lit up the Dezolis night sky. Where they hit, they shattered boulders and cracked holes in the ice floes, setting fire to any cacti that had managed to survive in the arid cold of the Dezolis wastes. If Rune hadn't managed to teleport them both into the coldest and least habitable region of Dezolis moments before Lutz cast the spell, lives would have been lost. The cats had all shielded themselves but Lutz would still have brought the cave ceiling down on them with a spell that powerful. He was now too caught up in his rage to do anything now except cast Legeon over and over again until he was mentally exhausted. He collapsed to the floor again, his breath coming out in rags. The cold was seeping in through the cracks in his abandoned personal shield. Rune took control again and used the last of his power to reinforce the barrier before he could die of hypothermia.

_You finished yet? _Rune hoped that talking to Lutz worked like talking to Musk Cats, except entirely in his head. He waited for a few seconds. There was no response but he felt a presence. There was the kind of tension around it of someone who couldn't think of a suitable response.

_I thought you were supposed to be watching over all Algol, _said Rune, _That doesn't look like watching to me, it looks like tearing things apart._

_Lutz watches over Algol, _replied the voice, _I'm not Lutz, am I? I'm his back-up personality. A faulty back-up personality. As opposed to you, his sub-standard replacement._

_Hey, watch it, I'm not that bad! I defeated the Profound Darkness! And you were fighting alongside Alis – I had to put up with Chaz! _He said. From Lutz's immediate attempt to cast Diem on himself, that wasn't the correct thing to say. _Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm no good at anything psychological. Everyone tells me I'm an insensitive jerk. It must be hell, finding out that you're dead. Come to think of it, it must be hell waking up to find a thousand years is gone. Being in my head isn't exactly a nice thing to happen to a person either. Especially with the things that have been happening to it lately._

There was a pause.

_I must apologise too, _replied Lutz, _What I almost did was terrible. If I can't even keep myself under control, I don't deserve to protect Algol. Dark Force can manipulate the weak-willed. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm working with a host mind that's at only a tenth of my power..._

_I'm glad to know that being a douchebag is just a natural trait of being Lutz._ He stared out over the wasteland, now a pandemonium of shattered icebergs, _So, what the hell do we do now?_

_I have no idea, I'm afraid. My physical shell is ruined. Its a relief, in a way. Waking up from cryogenic hibernation feels like waking up from the dead. I was growing weaker each time. At least you can keep your body in good condition, even if you're ruining your hair like that, _said Lutz, _Anyway, the Telepathy Ball was obviously moved to the new mansion. Something must have happened to stop it being fixed, or maybe they tried to fix it again and thought they had succeeded. _

_I wonder if that girl ever made it back?_

_What girl?_

_The girl who went to Rykros. She said she would try and fix it when she got home, remember?_

_I don't remember any girl._

_Oh well, whether she made it back or not, she obviously didn't fix the Telepathy Balls._

_It probably wouldn't do me any good to fix one, anyway. What am I going to do, put myself back inside it? Even if it was possible, there'd be nothing for my successor to inherit. There'd be nobody protecting Algol. And I'd be stuck in a glass ball for all eternity. _

Rune shuddered. For some reason, he was reminded of LaShiec, resurrected over and over again as an undead thing that haunted the Air Castle. At least the death of the Profound Darkness had lifted the curse and permanently destroyed him. While Rune could think of a death that would have a similar effect on the unfortunate shadow of Lutz, he didn't fancy it.

_I don't think I'm going to be able to stay awake for much longer, _he said, yawning.

_Me neither._

_Let's not fall asleep here and freeze to death. Do you think you can refrain from teleporting me anywhere else weird for a few hours while I get some sleep?_

_Not unless I think of somewhere really ingenuous._

Rune teleported himself back to the gates of the Esper Mansion, muttered something to the guards, then walked to his bed and fell asleep on it without bothering to take his clothes off.

* * *

Lutz was woken up by something jumping on his bed. It walked right up to his face and purred down his ear.

He blinked. There shouldn't still be cats. He remembered having to leave Myst Vale in an emergency. Something to do with a Legeon spell. Even if he were still there, Myst Vale didn't have beds. Cats didn't sleep on beds and they rarely had visitors in the middle of nowhere on Dezolis, so they didn't bother having any guest facilities. He couldn't think of anywhere else where there would be a cat.

Purring at him again, it prodded his nose. He reached out a hand to give a gentle shove off the bed. His hand went through it as though the cat wasn't there. With a confused meow, it jumped off the bed of its own accord.

_Come on, Lutz, you don't get to sleep in just because you stay awake all night studying!_

Her voice. He still remembered it perfectly. He couldn't remember what had happened to make him leave Myst Vale a few hours ago but he still remembered Alis' voice. He automatically obeyed, sitting up to face the leader of the party.

_Did you fall asleep with all your clothes again? Oh well. You'd better get going, you've got a long day ahead of you._

He shrugged and stood up. Alis turned and walked out of the door, Myau following at her heels. They walked along a corridor that seemed to span the length of the whole building. Every now and then, Lutz saw a statue of Alis in a radiant pose. It was a fairly good likeness, if a little larger than life. She gave the statues an amused glance but they otherwise didn't seem to bother her. At the other end of the building, there was a guarded door leading further inside. When the guards saw Lutz, they waved him through. They didn't seem to notice Alis at all.

_Just so you know, Myau ate your breakfast, _she commented as they walked through a well-tended indoor garden to a smaller chamber in the centre. Myau tried to eat one of the flowers. The door of the chamber opened when Lutz pushed it. He took a staircase leading down to the basement. There was another doorway leading off from the chamber, one that didn't look as though it had ever had a door in it. That was odd – he didn't remember there being another exit to this chamber before.

The doorway led into a cavern of blue-black rock. He must have been underneath the mansion! Alis walked calmly across the room. Myau had to jump to avoid puddles while he loped after her. While Lutz could hear noises that unsettled him – unearthly noises, like the wind whistling through trees on a stormy night – and saw shapes flitting through the periphery of his vision, nothing disturbed their progress.

At the other end of the cavern was another doorway. He stepped into a much smaller cavern. It contained only a stone plinth with another statue of Alis that held a sword before it like an eternal sentinel. The real Alis took the sword from the statue's hands and held it out for Lutz.

_Its time to head out, _said Alis.

_Are you sure this is okay? I can already see one of me in there._

_Who? No, that's not you, that's Noah. He can cope. Just do as I say. Who's leading this party?_

_Yes, ma'am!_ He closed his fingers over the handle of the sword. Everything was growing dim. He felt as if he were waking up from a long dream...


	7. Chapter 7

"Please don't fall asleep in the Chamber of Elsydeon!"

"WHAT?" he yelled, bolting straight upward. His legs failed him and he fell down again. His entire body felt completely drained. It wasn't all that unpleasant. It was as though he had finished a good day's work and was only now sitting down to rest. Still, it was embarrassing. He couldn't quite think as well either. Again, he wasn't as confused as he had been during the last few weeks, he just couldn't quite feel as much psychic energy floating around in there. He also couldn't remember what the hell had happened, "I said DON'T! You complete and utter..."

"Complete and utter what?" demanded the Elder.

"Aaargh! I didn't mean you!" yelled Rune, "I... I was talking to..."

"Please don't profane this holy sanctum with foul language." warned the Elder, "Even you shouldn't be here with good cause. I've already punished the guards for not checking what you were actually doing in the Inner Sanctum."

"Sorry. I was sleepwalking."

"Sleepwalking? You don't know the password to get in the Chamber of Elysdeon!"

"Password? I think it was..." he scratched his head and looked up at the statue, "Already open?"

"Of course."

"Is it still time for breakfast?"

"You slept through it."

Rune groaned. He walked out of the chamber. He could feel Alis' eyes boring into his back, accusing him, measuring him up for an unpleasant afterlife worthy of his many shortcomings.

_I don't care where I go, as long as I don't get randomly teleported anywhere else stupid today._

As it turned out, he didn't. He made it to lunchtime without any incident. He decided to go for a walk to visit Raja. The old priest was still as annoying as ever but it was an almost refreshingly mundane kind of annoyance – he was only telling awful jokes and getting drunk on the ceremonial wine, not possessing him or teleporting him to the moon or anything. By the time he was ready for tea, he had expected at least something to happen to him. Nothing. He met Kyra at the dining hall and she tried to steal his dessert. He wondered whether there was something more worthwhile that he could be doing as the guardian of Algol than lazing around and eating.

That night, he had an unusually vivid dream.

He was on Rykros. Lonely as ever, the very rocks pulsating with an ancient power, the planet itself was like an eternal dream. Aurorae of green and magenta drifted across the night sky. The planet's soft hum, like a machine on standby, was the only sound, just like the pattern of the skies and a soft breeze blowing the crystal dust across the rocks were the only movements. The planet probably has nobody on it now, he thought. The forces of the Profound Darkness had disappeared along with their master. The Guardians had fallen back into their sleep, possibly eternal, now there was no further need for their historical records. As Rykros drifted back out of the Algol solar system, the planet's orbit was now too far away from the other planets for any humans or even the androids on their satellites to get there.

He walked for what seemed like an eternity, then the Silence Temple drifted into view. The door opened when he approached it. He stepped inside.

In the tower's central chamber, Le Roof was awake. A figure sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, their eyes closed. It was the girl Rune had seen in the vision. No, in two visions now. She had been singing softly to herself when Rune walked in. As he approached her, her eyes snapped open.

"Brother! You're awake again!" she said, "I never thought you'd come."

"I... I think there's been some kind of mistake..." he said, unsure what to say to a crazy two-thousand-year-old Esper in a dream who thought he was her sister, "Er... was it you that time, with the mission and the Telepathy Balls and the... um... the cats?"

"CATS?" she stood up, her face deadly serious, "WHERE?"

"Er... never mind... there aren't any cats. Honest." she looked disappointed and sat back down again, "Did you ever finish whatever you were doing on Rykros?"

She shook her head, "Never did get off the planet, either. Ran into some problems of my own."

"It didn't work out so well with Lutz. I'm sorry..."

"That's okay, it means he'll be off the outer wheel when the disaster hits." she said, "Deep in the hub. That's the place to be. You should go there too, brother. But I guess you can't, can you?"

"What are you talking about? What disaster?"

"Oh, you weren't there yet. That's right." she scolded herself, "You see, those glitches you heard about... they weren't just glitches. They were malicious information. Like a virus."

"Oh hell. Dark Force again?"

"Much worse." she said, "Dark Force is something that was supposed to happen. This is completely alien information. Nothing to do with Algol. Rykros didn't know how to handle it at all. Must have picked it up somewhere far, far away."

"It tried to attack already but I fought it off and fixed things. That was only a small amount. When Rykros meets the source of that alien information again, it'll have a foothold to breach the wall, flood the place. I'm going to stay here anyway and help Le Roof fight it but ultimately, something's going to get through."

"Um... I suppose I should prepare the solar system to fight it off," he said, "But to be honest, I have no idea where to start. I'm not Lutz any more. I don't even have his memories. I won't live any longer than a normal person and I'll have no way to pass on my will to the next generation. When is this going to happen anyway?"

"The Fifth Cycle." she said.

"Oh. The good part of a thousand years away."

"Its not that long." she gave him a sideways glance, confused, "I thought it was obvious what you have to do. Let everyone know. The Fifth Cycle. Its going to break. Nothing that happens from then on can be trusted."

"I'll try and let someone know. I can't live for a thousand years but I might be able to pass on some knowledge. People listen to you when they think you're Lutz."

"Brother, I'm sorry," she said, "I should have worked it out faster. I think the false data might have been what corrupted the Telepathy Balls. It might even have been the reason some of our exam grades were so low. I..."

"Its okay." said Rune. Utterly confused as he was, he felt sorry for the girl. She was stuck on Rykros, possibly for longer than he could conceive of, she was insane and convinced the world was going to end, "I'll pass the message on for you."

"Next time you visit, can you bring a cat?"

"Um... sure... I'll bring as many as I can carry..."

"Thank you." she smiled. His vision contracted, as though he was walking through a long, narrow corridor, then he was awake.

* * *

_The long, long struggle of ancient times finally ended._

_Four bells tolled. Four bells lit._

_And the world continued for thousands of years..._


End file.
